Please calm me down, my northern friends

[Chic Chick]

In my neck of the woods it stays BELOW FREEZING for up to 4 months. The chickens survive!!. Fresh water, enough feed and a draft free coop with bedding is all they need. If you really want to pamper them then just hang a regular 100W bulb in their coop. That will give off enough heat and will also extend their light for egg laying.
Camelot - sometimes the simple soulutions just slip our minds...lol. Water is more environmentally friendly then bleach. Good that you're on the ball Ed!

 

[smith2]

Hi, I am in West TN, and you are right--we don't usually see this kind of cold this early in the winter. I have kept chickens in TN for several years now and I have found drafts and wet to be the worst enemies of chickens. Just cold doesn't seem to cause a lot of problems, but when conditions get too damp and drafty they deteriorate much more quickly. Most people around here do not have insulated coops, but my vet said it would take about 2-3 weeks of severe cold (below zero) to kill them assuming they are not sick and already worn down from other poor environmental factors. Make sure they have plenty to eat and drink several times a day, keep things dry and draft free and they should be fine; definitely stay away from those propane heaters. It doesn't sound like there is anything else you can reasonably do. I am also dealing with some of the same issues you are. Yesterday my DH and DS went out and added several layers of plastic around the coop walls to stop the drafts (my coop has 1/4 inch cracks between the boards to help control heat in the summer). It was 22 degrees here last night and they all met DH at the door this morning ready to go out, which they are not doing today because I only let them out when the temps are above freezing so they don't play in the water and get all wet. They will just have to get over their lack of foraging excursion for the next few days. Hope all goes well.

 

[77horses]

Just be glad you're not gonna be hit with a blizzard this weekend and your garage might possibly cave in because of the snow and wind and your chicken coop is in that garage!

It has been really cold here...although today it seems warmer than yesterday...It's around 30+*F right now.

Good luck!

 

[dappertophatter]

They'll be fine. Take a chill pill, make sure the coops are draft-free, and keep an eye on their water.

They and you will survive, honest. It IS scary when winter comes!

 

[barngem]

Quote:
Why dont you buy bottled water then you can just heat it up instead of the bleach????
Just a thought

oops couple others said the same

One thing i would add is to put straw in the bottom of the coop over the shavings. It will help hold heat

I live in Northern MI . We actually have had warmer than normal temps. Our lowest night thus far has been -5 one night, but we are staying in the teens and twenties at night mostly.~~~~ I love it.~~~~ Our days have been in the high twenties and mid thirties. We do have snow and it only got to 18 today that would be normal for this time of year during the day, and single digits at night. I have seen much worse temps and I am glad to see that temp this time of year. I have 6 chickens in a 4x4 coop that is 3 foot off the ground. It has weather stripping and 3" insulated walls with plywood inside and out. They have a large run that I have wrapped in tarps on all sides and top. In the back corner I stacked straw bales in one corner and put some deep straw on the cage floor. They like that sometimes. They seem to be doing just fine. I have a hen that is maybe 3 yrs old a bantam that is 2 yrs and then 4 sumatras that are 7 months,(fully feathered). They roost and cozy up together at night. I do have some condensation occasionally in the coop. I did not have that issue until I got more chickens.
I have a little screen door that goes on the small entry door at night and a solid door but in order to keep fresh air flowing in I keep the screen door on.

Thirty is plenty warm if they can get in out of draft and moisture and can roost up together

 

[danielle82]

Ive gotten down below zero one night without a heater. I do have an insulated coop, but I'm quite pleased with how good they do. I was really stressed about it, but I was thinkingh about them more like pets. I think If I left my dogs out in that they would be very very uncomfortable as they are used to being in the house all night and a lot during the day. The horses are fine outside in those temps, as are sheep, goats, and whatever other livestock people have. I think the chickens are fine down to zero if they are used to being outside and if they have a draft-free area at night. This is my first winter with chickens and my mind is greatly relieved.

 

[feathersnuggles]

Everything will be fine. Overnight temps at 30F seemed warm here several weeks ago. It went down to the single digits for well over a week. The waterer froze solid until I decided to bring it inside every night. That worked much better, and I refilled with warm water in the morning. Chickens that are big enough/old enough do great. Even in our pathetic, hand-me-down coop, the 5 hens stayed together huddled on the roost for the long, dark, & cold nights and were out in the run before daybreak -- with poop frozen to their feet, sometimes! Poor things, but they were fat & hearty and never looked better. We always had the upper vents wide open, even in the freezing howling wind, cuz cold air is very dry and we wanted to keep it that way. Our coop has the thinnest of plywood for walls, and the walls don't even fit together properly. There are gaps everywhere. So, I stuffed bubble wrap into all the gaps to cut down on drafts as much as possible. Then, I wrapped part of the attached run with clear heavy plastic so to keep the freezing blasts of arctic air from gusting through their pop-door, which was open until I decided to shut it at night, too. The pop-door is right below their roost.

Lots of extra protein and healthy treats. They ate a lot. And I'm a believer in warm water ... they LOVED the warm water and they drank huge quantities of it. Egg production continued normally like nothing was going on. They free-ranged fine, even on the solid frozen ground, though they didn't scratch as much as usual because everything was hard and frozen. I made sure to fill their run with thawed chickweed, grass, and other greens and they got extra sunflower seeds and cracked corn. We had no heat, no light in the coop at night. But we DID add extra straw and shavings. As long as my hens are plump and healthy, when another cold snap hits us, I'll do it again.

Recently, overnight temps have been anywhere from 28F to 35F. On most early mornings, the ground is frosty and crunches underfoot, thawing by midday. Nothing special right now, it's normal winter weather.

 

[biddyboo]

Thanks for this thread. We in mid-Missouri are also reaching a week of single digit or zero nights. We've just set up a red lamp to put some added warmth on our Silkies' indoor pen in our barn. Our fifteen standards are also in an indoor pen at night and can bundle together in deep bedding or on sawhorse roosts. I think they'll all be ok in the barn without additional heat. However, just today, I isolated in a large dog crate one of our br hens. She's been pecked on since we got her last summer, never severely until today. I found blood in the pen and traced it to her. Lots of feathers torn and broken, bleeding, and some deep pecks. We've been meaning to get Blu Kote for her and have not found it, so...

Anyway, now she's in a separated crate, lots of straw, but alone on these upcoming frigid nights. I think I'll do the Hot water bottle thing for her, nestled in her bedding and see if that will help keep her going while she heals. Thanks again for the idea! ~G

 

[jhm47]

Our high for this New Years Day was -5 degrees. Right now, it's -21 at 8:30 pm, and I would suspect that it'll get down to around -35 by morning. My bantams are in a plastic calf hut, and the door is not enclosed. They have a lot of feed to eat, and I give them warm mash, mixed with a generous amount of animal fat each day. This afternoon, I gave them a loaf of leftover Christmas bread that they devoured like candy. They get warm water twice a day, and all the snow they want to eat. So far, they are doing well, and since they are rosecomb SLW's their combs haven't even frozen. I also have a fairly large herd of cattle, and they are outside at all times. They get extra hay, and plenty of straw to lie on, and are doing just fine. They don't move very fast in this weather, but nothing else does either, including me. Considering that we are now about 53 degrees below a thawing temperature, we are doing just fine. However, we would welcome a good dose of global warming at this time. Guess I'll go burn some plastic and drive my SUV! LOL!

 

[write2caroline]

If you get a chance take a look at one of those loose feathers you see - The fluffy ones. ]

Even when one is not attached to the chicken - In cold if poofs up. Many together create little air pockets that get warmed by the body. Those feathers are mighty warm it is the drafts that causes problems.

Rocket dad posted an ingenius idea:

Take a 5 gal bucket with a lid, fill it with 200 degree hot water and put the lid on it. Set it in the middle of the coops.

As the water cools over time it will disperse heat and warm the air around it. They are pretty efficient actually like a radiator warming an apartment. And safe! By morning you might have to add more hot water but they will have been warmed by the thing all night.

Someone also suggested, sorry I don't remember the name to give them credit, that grocery stores with bakeries have frosting buckets that are about 5 gal with lids and if you ask they will give you. I got a few from my nearby Walmart and from the publix store too!

Caroline